Hugh Bailey: Seeking accountability for the connected

Published 6:15 pm, Friday, June 14, 2013

If the point of school reform is accountability, for teachers, for principals, for the schools themselves, then the reformers must be held to the same standards.

State officials can show how seriously they want to take this notion.

For all the attention they get, charter schools educate a small percentage of students. Their outsize influence is attributable to the fact that politically powerful people love them, and their supporters have built an impressive public relations machine. Some children no doubt get great educations at them.

By now, though, their shortcomings are old news. Their demographics do not match those of their host districts, making straightforward comparisons almost meaningless. There are all sorts of defenses offered up, but the numbers on English-language learners, children with special needs and those who qualify for free or reduced-price lunches are easy to find.

Beyond that is a more incendiary charge, and one they vigorously protest. It's the idea that charter schools make a practice of "counseling out" students who are harder to educate, and therefore likely to bring down test scores. If they can't make it there, it's back to the neighborhood school. This obviously is not an option available to traditional public schools, which have to take all comers.

Charter schools flat out deny this happens. "Our schools do not encourage struggling students to leave," states a legal brief filed by Achievement First, the state's largest charter school operator.

Maybe they don't do so explicitly. But it's been proven that one of the top predictors of future dropouts is suspensions. Students lose class time, fall behind and are prone to even more disciplinary problems, and to falling even further behind. A report issued earlier this year by the Civil Rights Project showed that being suspended even once can double the odds of a student dropping out.

And a series of reports this month show Achievement First is suspending kids at an alarming rate.

Charter schools suspend elementary students at double the rate of host districts, according to the Department of Education as reported by the CT Mirror. Half the students at the Achievement First middle school in Hartford will be suspended during the year at some point.

And the trend starts early. In Bridgeport, kindergartners and first-graders are reportedly eight times more likely to be suspended by Achievement First than in traditional public schools.

While acknowledging the numbers are too high, Achievement First said the schools set "a very high bar for the conduct of our students and that's because we've made a promise to our scholars and our families that we are going to prepare them for college."

Yes, their story is that they suspend 6-year-olds to get them ready for college.

State officials seem genuinely outraged, but it's hard to predict what will change. Commissioner of Education Stefan Pryor helped found the initial Achievement First school, and though he won't comment on this issue because of his personal ties, he has no problem extolling charter schools when the news is good.

Whatever else needs to be done to improve education, the first step is keeping kids in school. A report by Connecticut Voices for Children shows there are proven methods to cut the rate of suspensions without giving up on discipline.

It's true that most of these suspensions are reportedly for less than a full day, but they still mean missed class time. And that can be enough to push students out of a school altogether.

Hartford's Achievement First charter school is up for a renewal from the state. Pressing for change there would have an impact across Connecticut. The state can prove whether the accountability it's pushing everywhere else applies to the politically connected, as well.